In recent years, there has been a proliferation of multi-media content. One example of such content is motion picture content. Motion picture content is content that includes numerous pictures (frames, fields, images, drawings, etc.) that are displayed in a sequence in order to provide the illusion to a viewer that objects in the picture appear to move. Examples of such content include animations, movies, television shows, home videos, or any other type of video clips.
With the proliferation of multi-media content on computers, various methods have been proposed to allow computer users to identify and organize such content. However, to date, few solutions have been proposed to allow a user to ascertain quickly the subject matter of motion-picture content stored on a computer.
For instance, the graphical user interface of most computers today display a generic icon for the motion picture content and require the user to identify the content's subject matter from the title of the icon. FIG. 1 illustrates one such approach. Specifically, it illustrates four icons 105-120 of four video clips that are stored in a folder 125 entitled Videos. Each of these icons has a text component and a graphical component. The graphical component of each icon only illustrates that the icon's associated video clip is an AVI file that can be opened by the Quicktime media player. An icon's graphical component provides no other indication of the subject matter of the icon's video clip. The only indication of the subject matter of the icon's video clip is provided by the icon's text, which provides the name of the video clip. Hence, a viewer cannot glean too much information about the subject matter of a video clip from the video clip's icon.
Some have suggested having one frame from the video clip serve as the graphical component of the clip's icon. FIG. 2 illustrates one such approach. In particular, it illustrates four icons 205-220 of four video clips that are stored in a folder 225 entitled Videos. The graphical component of each of these icons illustrates the first frame in each video clip, while the icon's text provides the name of the video clip. This approach pictorially provides a user with more information regarding the subject matter of each clip than the approach illustrated in FIG. 1. However, even under the approach illustrated in FIG. 2, a viewer still might not be able to glean too much information about the subject matter of a video clip from the video clip's icon, because the first frame of the clip might not be very representative of the clip's subject matter or might not provide enough information to allow a viewer to understand the subject matter.
Another approach is to display a video preview window next to a video clip's icon when the video clip is selected. The user can then view the video clip in this preview window. FIG. 3 illustrates this approach. Specifically, it illustrates a Movies folder 305 that includes eight video clips. In this figure, the Movies folder is illustrated in a column-view format employed by the OS X operating system of Apple Computer, Inc. Also, in this figure, a video clip 310, entitled Comedy, has been selected. This selection causes a preview window 315 to open to the right of this video clip. At its bottom, the window 315 has control buttons 320 (e.g., play, volume, etc.) that allow a user to initiate and control the playback of the video clip within the window 315.
The approach illustrated in FIG. 3 allows a user to review the subject matter of a video clip without the need to have a media player formally open the video-clip's file. Hence, a user can more quickly ascertain the subject matter of a video clip. On the other hand, this approach still does not provide the user with immediate or near immediate visual data regarding the subject matter of the video clip.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a graphical user interface that provides quick feedback to a user about the subject matter of a video presentation. More generally, there is a need for a graphical user interface that would provide the same preview feedback for any other audio presentation, image presentation (e.g., collection of images), document presentation, etc. Ideally, this graphical user interface would provide the user with several different options to quickly discern and access the subject matter of the presentation.